I was taking a class on popular music history...

It's not about talent. Chuck Berry was a much better guitar player than most of those 60s rock groups (maybe a worse songwriter though). It's about generational disconnect. The whole pop music scene is based on youth, once you lose that you lose your marketability.

It's only a competition if you're an insufferable faggot obsessed with "making it".

Popular music was quickly evolving into the AOR format and the 50s guys were singles artists who mostly never managed to figure albums out.

On my TV screen
Every Labor Day
Fuckin' Jerry Lewis
Make him go away

JERRY LEWIS, I'M COMIN TO GET YA

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that's about jerry lewis the comedian though

Actually after rock and roll died, folk took over from 1959 to 64. Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul, and Mary, etc. The former even got on a Time Magazine cover.

The thing is, a lot of the folkies faded as well after 65. So if most of them couldn't adapt to the counterculture era, why would you think 50s dudes could?

Honestly, most of his songs were just the same lick i.e. Johnny B. Goode and Roll Over Beethoven. I hardly think that makes him better than most of the 60s guys.

Buddy Holly: Dead
Chuck Berry: Did time in the state pen
Elvis: Army+movies
Jerry Lee Lewis: Shot himself in the foot by being a pedo
Little Richard: Found Jesus
Bill Haley: Was old as fuck

hahaha you moron

youtube.com/watch?v=zkoG-wI9_2g&t

youtube.com/watch?v=T9awpv5BnSc

>Buddy Holly: Dead
Yes.
>Chuck Berry: Did time in the state pen
True but he came back with a vengeance and produced a couple of classic songs in 64-65. Even later on he was making lesser-known gems like Tulane and had his only #1 hit in 1972.
>Elvis: Army+movies
True but he kept having hit after hit including a #1 in 1969 and right up to his death was still posting songs that made the top 20.
>Jerry Lee Lewis: Shot himself in the foot by being a pedo
True but he kept recording and touring for many years. A lot of his later stuff was dodgy but there's some hidden gems in there.
>Little Richard: Found Jesus
He went gospel for a while but still toured and recorded, in fact his last charting single was in 1986 (!)
>Bill Haley: Was old as fuck
Ok yeah. He was born in 1925 and had begun his career in the 40s. His early recording help show the influence country swing and hillbilly boogie had on 50s RnR.

>live at the star club!

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>Was old as fuck
Meanwhile the last couple generations of rock musicians have been generously represented by people who were the same age as Haley in his prime

Bill Haley remained popular in other countries long after he'd faded in the US. Latin Americans in particular were really big on the guy. Also he toured like crazy and got some renewed attention when Happy Days used Rock Around The Clock.

Yeah but even many of the British Invasion groups didn't stick around too long. What happened to Dave Clark Five and Herman's Hermits after 66? So plenty of them couldn't even adapt to psychedelia.

He copied himself a bunch and stuck to blues progressions but he did vary his riffs a bit more than that
he also played in more adventurous keys than people realize

Chuck Berry's songs were usually in C as opposed to E minor which is more the standard for guitar music, probably because Johnnie Johnson, a keyboardist, was his arranger.

Almost all of them tried psychedelia. Some like the Zombies and Moody Blues were successful in adapting, others like DC5 just couldn't do it.

Zombie and Moody Blues were major talents though. I mean all the lesser British Invasion groups like Herman's Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Swinging Blue Jeans. They all faded from the charts in the late 60s. See for example when Gerry and the Pacemakers covered Simon & Garfunkel's Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine.

Older stars trying to remain relevant after their prime is a modern thing

Yeah most of them probably couldn't adapt. And some musicians have a bigger bag of tricks up their sleeve than others. When you try to be something you're not, it also feels forced and awkward.

Buddy Holly was kind of a precursor to the Beach Boys and the Beatles in his flexibility and willingness to experiment. Also he wrote, sang, and performed his own music which was not usually the norm for most guys in the 50s.

Chuck Berry and Little Richard really didn't have that same flexibility. They settled on a sound they liked early on and ran with it, so all their music was pretty much a variation of the same song. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with doing this and a lot of groups looked silly trying to chase the Beatles.

John Lennon was asked once what current music he liked (this was in the early 70s) and he said no, he didn't really listen to anything new and his personal playlist was mostly 50s rock and roll. He did admit to enjoying CCR and also complimented Dave Edmunds' version of I Hear You Knocking.

The guitar in Revolution sounds like straight-up Chuck Berry.

Hasil Adkins kind of beat him to it. That's still one of the best albums of all time, though.
Yeah, they were largely "greatest hits"-type artists.
Something about Bill Haley's voice pisses me off.

What? No it doesn't. For one thing it has way too much distortion and is played in a minor key. It's more like proto-grunge than anything Chuck Berry did. In fact Kurt Cobain once said that Revolution had the perfect guitar tone.

Yeah well, South America is always decades behind the times. They still think 80s thrash is hot--seriously, Slayer have no problem getting 100,000 people in the crowd when they play in Brazil.

By the time the Beatles hit their stride 50s rock and roll was outdated as fuck and I can't imagine Carl Perkins writing A Day in the Life or Elvis singing Rain.

Ok and it's also worth pointing out that 50s rock and roll mostly evolved from R&B, country, and blues using very simple song and chord structures. The Beatles drew on a lot of influences including jazz, classical, and British music hall.

The 50s guys didn't have the range or cultural exposure of the Beatles. I do agree Buddy Holly had the best chance to be able to compete.

The Beatles really stand apart in just how much of a compositional and songwriting range they had. They weren't as retro as the Stones for example. And no, George Martin didn't "make" the Beatles--if he did, why couldn't he make groups like DC5 produce a Rubber Soul?

Indeed. Chuck Berry wrote a lot of great songs about rock and roll, cars, and girls, but he never really figured out how to do anything else. Elvis was a performer, not a songwriter or composer.

What Bob Dylan had was his unmatched lyrical prowess which blew away people at the time and still does.

The Stones had some great songs but no, they weren't in the same league as the Beatles or Brian Wilson for imagination or compositional skill.

Roy Orbison was the one guy from the 50s who was riding high when the Beatles broke, but after switching to MGM, his star faded.

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Roy was certainly a lot more relevant in the early 60s than Elvis, who was mired in shitty movies and had no sense of Q/C--he had a million songs given to him but the ones he decided to record were far from the best.

Oh Pretty Woman was kind of the culmination of Roy the way Johnny B. Goode was for Chuck Berry and there was really no way he could top it.

The Beatles never forgot rock music though while the Beach Boys post-65 drifted increasingly away from rock and into progressive pop experiments. The guitar was not the focus of their songs by that point. Brian Wilson's huge arrangements and experimentation were well in excess of anything the Beatles tried. It's not hard to understand a Beatles song, but Beach Boys songs by the time of Pet Sounds almost defy all musical conventions.

Conventional 4/4 guitars and drums kind of music was too limiting for Brian--his mind was on another dimension of musical thought entirely.

shame he's pretty much a vegetable now

this is proof that zoomers just hate on old people no matter what. No matter what they did you would shit on them

But that too. 50s rock and roll was simple music designed to get kids dancing. It wasn't meant as a challenging listening experience. The Beatles also gave up on live performances to concentrate on their studio craft; as fate would have it, some of those songs worked well live, others didn't.

Drugs were a huge part of it. Imagine Ricky Nelson or Bobby Darrin doing acid--no you can't.

Most of the 50s guys didn't care for the British Invasion or what it was doing or the message it was sending and most had grown up and put teenager music past them by that point. Jerry Lee and a bunch of others were doing country music. Most of them were still pretty young but at that time a 30 year old looked ancient playing rock and roll.

>What Bob Dylan had was his unmatched lyrical prowess which blew away people at the time and still does.
Dylan going electric was a major reason why the Beatles et al stepped up their game. I don't think they would have thought to try anything but simple cars-and-girls lyrics without Highway 66 Revisited. Brian Wilson wouldn't have thought to hook up with Van Dyke Parks and evolved past Mike Love's surfing and girls ditties.

I know Link Wray considered The Beatles' stuff to be softy music and disliked their partaking in "Satan's candy."

Ok but at the same time, Dylan's electric move was greeted with raised eyebrows and o rly reactions. He was still viewed at that time as a folkie, not a rocker. After Highway 61 and Mr. Tambourine Man, everyone decided to start writing more ambitious songs.

You forgot a couple of things happened before Dylan went electric. One the Beatles ignite the British Invasion. It was the Beatles that influenced the Byrds going electric not Dylan. The Beatles and the Searchers were already doing folk rock before the Byrds. The Beatles were the reason the Stones and others were writing their own songs. Last but not least it was Dylan who has stated the Beatles were heading the direction music was heading. Dylan went electric in large part of the Beatles and the British Invasion. He only had his major chart hit in 1965. Without the Beatles no British Invasion=No Folk Rock=no Dylan going electric. In my opinion the Beatles were just as or more important in songwriting than Dylan because they established the norm for rock artists writing their own songs. Remember Dylan was a folk artist in 1964.

The British Invasion really lit a collective fire under everyone's asses. Those who didn't climb on board--like Elvis--seemed irrelevant only because they already were. And it isn't like he didn't have plenty of opportunity after getting out of the army to do more than he did. I mean, seriously. Elvis was running on a ratio of 80% crap, 20% good material. On the other hand, Del Shannon and Roy Orbison were doing creative things in a way Elvis had forgotten how to do. And he was far from the exception. Bobby Darin was 100% on the adult contemporary circuit by 64, so was Connie Francis even if she was like Paul Anka associated more with rock than actually being a rocker.

So it was obvious that some people just couldn't adapt to the changing times and Elvis was almost unique in the vast marketing machine that kept him going for 22 years. The British Invasion brought a lot of fresh new talent with a new approach to things (along with plenty of lesser talents like Gerry and the Pacemakers) and a lot of American artists ended up getting sidelined, sometimes deservedly.

>Chuck Berry wrote a lot of great songs about rock and roll, cars, and girls, but he never really figured out how to do anything else
His lyrics actually had a lot of nuance and hidden meaning to them that often went right over people's heads.

50s rockers did what came naturally to them combining country with blues and gospel. They had an altogether different cultural background than the Beatles and not a lot in common. Most of them were raised in deeply religious, churchgoing households and a lot of them didn't like the direction that 60s culture went in.

Actually the Everly Brothers did seek to dance to the new beat.

THeir mid to late 60s albums are great rock/folk rock and country rock with a little pysch whimsy thrown in. Great voices can still sing great songs, and the Everlys covered or wrote great originals during this time. Bear Family and Warners have done some excellent reissues.

The Beatles did a different kind of music that played to a slightly different audience. The teenager of 1965 was not the teenager of 1955.

Rock and roll wasn't seen as a lifelong career in the 50s or a way to make a living. It was just seen as kiddie stuff until you grew up and became a "serious" performer like Sinatra or Perry Como.

By the 70s, rock had become a multimillion dollar industry which was why you eventually had Aerosmith touring with Bon Jovi and Poison when they were pushing 40. It still happens today with Ozzy performing with younger metal acts at Ozzfest or Bon Jovi making country albums and claiming it isn't.